Thursday, February 22, 2007

Let's Just Sell the State House and be Done With It

Quite frankly, I've had it with all the craziness. The Massachusetts State House - you know, the one with the huge-ass Golden Dome - is an historical landmark. Thousands of important decisions have taken place there. Hundreds of significant historical figures walked through its doors. Most importantly, it's a credit to the entire people of Massachusetts: a symbol of what all our collective hard work can do. If we don't want to continue to work hard to keep it up, as elegant and modern as it has ever been, then let's just sell the damn thing and be done with it.

Maybe some art museum will come sweeping in, ecstatic for the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have such a magnificent building. They'll really appreciate every single brick and flake of gold at the top; they'll upkeep the building by providing it new and nice things like furniture and drapery. Spending money on upkeep won't ever be a problem for them, it's not as if the press casts a critical eye on what non-profits spend their money on.

Maybe some gigantic corporation would want to buy it. After all, it's a large lot. If the building wasn't big enough for some CEO to decide to HQ in Boston under the Golden Dome, then they could just tear the whole damn thing down. Sure, all the hippies will throw a conniption, but protesting hippies and all their 'love and respect' for history and art is so tiresome. Meanwhile, we can just count the tax-dollar dough all the jobs such a spartan complex could bring. Of course, we better give the corportation lots of blood money "incentives" so they'll come; we'll just tax the hell out of their employees to make up for it.

Meanwhile, after the State House is sold and gone, we can just rent out the cheapest office space across Boston. After all, who needs one centralized location? It's really just a matter of convenience. We can have one office here, another there, maybe even in a closet... and, really, there is space aplenty after the 'merger' of some of our biggest, most important corporations. That way, people can be really happy because the state operations will truly be cost-efficient and spartan as all hell. We won't waste a dime on elegance - only rich people deserve that, and only in their private homes and clubs. Why should the people who work at the state house, who make crap anyway, be entitled to a comfy chair and nice curtains? Let's just sit their tushes on the floor while we're at it, too, the free-loading serfs. And screw keeping it nice for visitors - we don't want them anyway.

The most important thing to remember is we can't stop at the State House. Historical landmarks - of any kind - are all expensive. Let's start by getting rid of the most expensive things things this state operates - it's parks. We have one of the largest state park systems in the country, yet (not unexpectedly) woefully underfund it. See, we already have our priorities straight, we just need to follow through, get off our asses and call Century 21 to take the tens of thousands of acres off our hands. Who needs parks anyway? Imagine all the 500k, unaffordable townhouses we could throw up instead? Then, let's save this state thousands every year by letting the Zakim Bridge blue lights dim - for good. The entire bridge itself was probably a waste of money, but what can we do now? I suppose we can stop with the upkeep completely and let it eventually fall into the dirty water. People can find an alternative route.

Clearly, the state is suffering a budget crisis. Therefore, we need to find more money and can't spend a dime on upkeep and such trivial things as our historical landmarks. Even if people just give the state fancy drapery as donations, we still can't have any of it. That's what yard sales are for! Let's just sell all this state's assets and have ourselves a fundraiser (anyone else like to regift?). Our respect for the art and history of this great state will be dead - good riddens. We've been heading toward mediocrity for a while now; doesn't this race to the bottom sound exciting?

Update: Some perspective for everyone to consider when they go and say Deval's apology is petty or doesn't matter.

I was thinking of the same thing over on BMG. Most of the "historic" buildings in Salem are condos since private developers are the only ones who can afford to do anything with them.

Let the State House be made into condos! We don't seem to mind a bit when the private sector overpays for drapes; and given that we have not had a honorable legislature in a long time, the State House a museum to our past glories when we as a state were better.

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